Why No-Code Workflows Are A Digital ROI Breakthrough for Insurers

Insurers have poured billions of dollars into IT-heavy core systems and digital point solutions over the past decade. But how do these digital investments impact ROI?

COVID Has Exposed IT-Dependent Risks and Fragility

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional insurance companies and brokers have faced a race against time: Time to catch up with today’s post-pandemic consumer expectations. Time to meet the formidable challenges brought forth by digital-first insurtech challengers and BigTech giants like Amazon. And just as importantly, time to prioritize investments that have a clear and measurable impact on ROI and their TCO. From Q1 2018 to Q1 2021, global funding for Insurtech companies spiked 252%, reaching an all-time high of $2.5 billion. Having become more digitally-savvy since COVID, many customers today are open to breaking away from traditional insurer brands and buying insurance products from new entrants to the industry. With intense competition for increasingly fickle customers, being able to see the larger picture when committing to digital investments will be ever-crucial. Insurance executives need to not only demonstrate the impact of projects they’ve already implemented, but also to understand precisely how future initiatives will drive business results.

IT Dependencies Kill Digital Time to ROI

How long is enough to wait before getting to ROI? 82% of CFOs expect to wait 3-5 years before seeing ROI on their technology investment. Why are insurers settling - and waiting so long just to see real return? Many traditional technology solutions today still lean heavily on IT involvement to run and maintain. This means sapping IT time and resources for development, testing and maintenance. These projects are often complex, expensive, and are delayed due to multiple factors such as:

• Software coding errors
• Inaccurate estimation
• Testing challenges
• Several infrastructure delays

Solution developers constantly run continuous maintenance cycles to keep custom software secure, find and fix bugs, and apply updates which don’t always integrate well with a company’s existing systems, leading to critical errors and gaps that show up on the customer side. Taxing IT time and resources drives up associated costs - which increase your Total Cost of Ownership. That prolongs time to ROI even longer, which is why IT dependence has insurers waiting years to bear fruit from their digital investments. That may be acceptable if you’re replacing deeply embedded backend systems, but for solutions your customers interact with? That valuable time your business simply can’t win back. Your customers demand fast, simple and seamless journeys, now.

Lose the Code to Break IT Dependency

While systems such as Business Process Management (BPM) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) help automate operational and back-office tasks - Customer experiences solutions require intelligent automation that is digitally complete and unifies a businesses’ backend and frontend. Making this happen at scale and speed requires solutions that can deliver immediate and clear impact with zero coding required by IT. A Digital Completion solution integrates these workflows seamlessly into existing infrastructure using flexible APIs that allow businesses to transact sales and service with their customers immediately and efficiently from any touchpoint. Automated workflows allow insurers to dynamically build and adjust processes to meet their current needs. Entire sales and claims journeys can be customized to each customer requirement: Customers are asked to provide only the information that is needed from them, no more and no less. By integrating important customer-facing processes like document collection, file sharing, dynamic eForms and instant eSignatures. Customers can apply for policies or submit claims by intuitively tapping and swiping on their mobile phone, just as they’re used to with their favorite consumer apps. No-code automated workflows integrate with:

• Existing workflows
• CRMs
• Agent toolbars
• Third-party business applications
• Agent call center toolbars

No code solutions enable project managers to easily set up their own business rules and make adjustments on the fly by applying conditional logic, allowing to customize customer journeys end-to-end, and seamless digital self-service options that save time for customers and employees alike. This helps businesses accelerate processes at scale such as:

• Live Product Presentations: Automated digital workflows allow agents to create an “order” showcasing potentially relevant insurance products, and sharing it in real-time with customers in a collaborative mobile session.
• Shared Review of Documents & Agreements: Once the customer expresses interest in purchasing a product or service, the agent shares a document with the customer for an in-call review. The agent and customer can clarify queries collaboratively.
• Instant Consent: Instead of the agent reading lengthy terms and conditions scripts that can easily be misunderstood, they can simply send them to a customer’s mobile phone as part of an automated workflow for instant click consent.
• eSignature Collection: Once the customer agrees to make a purchase workflows can automatically trigger a request for the customer’s electronic signature. Customers sign in real-time directly within the digital session, and an audit trail of the signed document is produced and stored in the CRM.

Fast Time to ROI & Lower TCO With No-Code Workflows

Taking IT management and maintenance out of the equation frees up business to deliver digitally complete customer journeys while reducing TCO in parallel, saving significant time and money. Combining the efficiency of end-to-end digital journeys that customers can breeze through on their smartphones with lowered TCO? Now that’s torque when it comes to ROI. Leading analyst firm Forrester recently put the impact of digital completion to the test, and found that businesses are gaining a 360% return on investment. And they’re not waiting 3-5 years to see it - instead they’re gaining this payout in 6 months or less. Getting to ROI fast while minimizing costs will continue to major differentiators - which is why there’s now better time than now to leverage no-code digital workflows.